Hands-on with Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam

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We hit the slopes at Activision's press event. New images and video included.

By Mark Bozon

As we near the launch of Wii next month, gamers everywhere are starting to put down cold hard cash on their favorite titles to experience on day one. Preorders on software are already rolling in to retailers, and while titles such as Excite Truck and Zelda may be obvious choices, there are a ton of great third party games hitting the Wii right off the bat, too. Among those games sits Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, a title we've been covering for six months. More recently, we were invited to play though a good chunk of Downhill Jam at Activision's latest press showing, and though there are no new modes to rave about or huge secrets to unveil, the game is still good fun and we're feeling more comfortable with the control scheme as we put more time on the board.

Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam is a spin-off of the main franchise that has been custom-created for the Nintendo Wii. Developed by Toys for Bob, the game focuses on an aspect of Hawk that players may have forgotten about over the years; downhill racing. In the original Hawk game for PlayStation and Nintendo 64, a few downhill levels were included along with the traditional free-roaming areas to change up the basic Hawk gameplay. While they had the same missions as the wide open zones, the downhill levels focused more on hitting huge trick lines and pulling off long grinds to explore the entire area. The levels had people tricking over the gaps of a huge canyon, or grinding down escalators in the original Mall level. For Downhill Jam, the team focused on taking that style of gameplay to the next level, adding in full race modes, trick attacks, and widely open-ended downhill tracks to play around in.

In the latest playthrough, we had a chance to go head-to-head in four-player mode, selecting our favorite fictional skaters (that seem to take a ton of creative inspiration from games like SSX and Guitar Hero) and compete in a ton of different modes. When playing, we were allowed to set up our own levels and modes if we preferred, or instead could set the game to a random selection, giving us one of many different modes to compete in. While the basic race and trick modes were very solid, there was a ton of heated competition behind the slalom mode, which gives each player a race timer and forces them to skate through rings to add more time to their bar. Since the levels are designed with branching paths (some easier than others, of course), we were rewarded for seeking the hardest lines possible, attempting to use power lines and the tops of storefronts in the San Francisco level, or ride high above the mountain tops in Machu Pichu to hit the most amount of gates possible.

In a new mode called "Steal the Head," players start as headless skaters, and must compete for first place to earn a gigantic head on their shoulders as a token of their awesomeness. To steal the head from the first place player, you had to either pass them up, or attack the leader to knock their noggin off. To keep things even, the player with the head has the boost ability disabled, so they'll have to innovate with huge trick lines or use dangerous skating to avoid the chasing competitors. Since each of the players were working to chase down one specific goal, this mode had a bit more player interaction than something like slalom or trick attack, which had each racer basically running their own lines or simply competing for the overall score at the end of the run.

Aside from the new multiplayer mode, we had a chance to get a few interesting tidbits about the game. For starters, skate fans will be happy to hear that along with the expected brands of boards (such as Tony Hawk's own Birdhouse brand), downhill skating brands such as Sector 9 will also be making an appearance, giving the game a bit more legitimacy as a downhill skating game, rather than just a regular Hawk title with a downhill theme tacked on. In addition, the new flipping system was fully integrated into the build, so we had a chance to try adding flips and spins together with kick/grab tricks. Pulling off a flip works just like the spins, having players tilt the controller forward or backwards in order to send the player in a head-over-heels roll. When combining a spin with a flip, you'll simply tilt the entire controller at an angle on both the X and Y axis simultaneously. If, for example, you wanted to flip forward and spin clockwise at the same time, you'd just tilt the controller away from you and lift up with your left hand. It's simple, and it works.

As a general note about gameplay, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam may find its way in gamers' homes simply because of the laid back feel you can have with the game. Rather than standing in front of a sensor bar and coordinating nunchuk controls with the Wii-mote pointer, Hawk allowed us to sit back in a comfortable chair, hold the controller NES style (which feels great, by the way), and just have a blast with a few fellow reporters. The gameplay was easy enough to pass the controller around, and it was totally common to have around eight players constantly swapping in and out. It's amazing how using simple controls and a tiny wireless gamepad got us in the sharing mood, but it really does work. Hardcore gamers may be looking for games like Zelda and Metroid to dominate their time, but games like Excite Truck, Trauma Center, and Downhill Jam are great ways to fill in the more casual gaps no matter what demographic you may fit into.